Monday, March 13, 2006

The myth of the black student who stole your spot at Yale...

This bitch had a fantabulous day off! The sun was shining, the birds were singing and my phone wasn’t ringing…fantabulous indeed.Thank you to my international readers for your concern over a bitch’s safety. Yes, Missouri has been hit with some serious storms. This is the Midwest and we tend to have dramatic spring weather. Sadly, some lives have been lost. But rest assured that a bitch was blessed and did not face the full fury of nature here in St. Louis. We Midwesterners kind of take it all in stride…we cut our teeth on Tornados and floods ‘round here. But a bitch is touched that y’all care.

No, a bitch was not at O’Connell’s Pub recently! But they do have yummy food. Mayhap a bitch will swing on by and get my St. Patrick's Day on. Anyhoo, whoever is out there looking like a bitch needs to cease…unless you’re fine as hell, which only helps my brand image.

“I heard a white former South African once say: "I was born and raised in Africa, I am an African. So when I become an American, am I not an African American?"..."Then why can I not get minority entrance points for college?"..."Am I not discriminated against?"...Since Black Africans won that conflict, maybe you would like to comment? From an historical perspective of course.”

Well, a bitch only took one South African history course and that was years ago...but black South Africans having 'won' a conflict in South Africa doesn't have a damned thing to do with a white South African getting minority entrance points here in America...speaking from a historical perspective.

Having said that, a white South African who immigrates to America and feels that he is an African American can rock that identity all he wants to. Lawd knows checking African American on forms is beyond beneficial, sure as shit gets your foot in the front door and is the reason why so many top positions are held by African Americans.

Ummm...that's what my people call bullshit (wink).

Which brings a bitch to the underlying assumption that affirmative action is the reason some students don’t get to go to State.That's what we're talking about, right? The fear of a black person taking 'your' spot at Yale?

A bitch was pretty fucking pissed off when my ass showed up at a certain liberal arts college (no, not Yale...shudder and perish the thought) and realized that my ass had out tested most of the sorry assed motherfuckers raising hell about affirmative action.

Shit.

A bitch isn't trying to say my ass is wicked smart...shit, this bitch can't spell for shit...but my ass just wishes some of the assholes bitching about not getting in would look in the mirror and have a come to Jesus with their own ass about their GPA and those sorry assed SAT scores that really got them circular filed.

A bitch only got more pissed when my ass realized that some of the dumbest motherfuckers at school…and my ass means dumb…were legacies.See, the dude who may have taken your spot at Yale is most likely not the brown and black students who make up less that 10% of the student body. He's that legacy admit...you know, Carter Silverspoon from Choate?... yeah, him and his forever unimpressive non-intellectual ass. College ain’t a meritocracy, but that fact is better explored through a conversation with the heir to your right and not the black chick to your left.

My father went to college on the G. I. Bill and he went to grad school through an affirmative action program. He worked his ass off, was not academically prepared and struggled to get through. But he did it and he never let his chil'ren forget that struggle was mixed in with the blessing of an education. His daughters reaped the benefits of his efforts, attended strong public schools and had a much easier road to college as a result.

Sometimes affirmative action works.Which brings us to this word 'fair'. Fair does not apply to college admissions. Most universities apply tons of qualifications and they don’t exactly do it fairly.

My alma mater would have been majority Asian and international if 'fair' applied to college admissions.

Colleges seek to have a diverse population because diversity enriches the educational experience. International students, rural students, rich students, black students and so on add to the college experience. The problem comes when some students apply a sense of entitlement to college admissions…they then latch on to the most offensive 'got into school' practice and proceed to show their natural ass on Dateline by bitching about why they didn’t get in and claiming that Keisha or Coretta or Michael took their spot.

A healthier…dare a bitch say, more fair…rant would start with the legacies who took up 20% of the freshman class. Then you could move on down to the 50% of hyper-qualified students who didn’t get accepted because said school had ‘reached’ a certain quota…then mosey on over to the 'daddy paid for this building' admissions…oh, and the 'our sports program is a revenue generator', but don’t hold your breath on that academic scholarship admissions. The road is long and muddy as a motherfucker before you even get to the 10% that may or may not have been admitted with some racial preference...not that many are bothered by the 'may', because a bitch wishes my ass had a dollar for every ignorant assumed affirmative action comment my ass heard while 'getting schooled'.Yeah.

What was the original question? Oh, can a former white South African now white African American get special treatment when applying to college?

Sure, as long as an AngryBlackBitch can get my reparations paid in South African gold...honey.

19 comments:

Wow, I'm a little excited having read that post ABB. Wowsa. So, personally, I hate the 'age of entitlement' in which we now reside. People expecting things for nothing. Don't get me wrong, I know where the thoughts come from. But, we need to move on.

there was a guy in my highschool who's great grandmother was black so he put down on his sat's that he was african american. (he was paler than i am) and got a huge scholarship and expected preferences to get into the colleges he applied to.

he was such an ass that someone dressed up as him on halloween and we all knew who he was.

meanwhile, when we asked what race he actaully believed he was he said white.

I work in college admissions and thought you'd like this article, if you haven't read it already:

http://www.gladwell.com/2005/2005_10_10_a_admissions.html

It's about how college admissions got started... at Hahvahd, because too many WASP legacy spots were being taken by Jews, so an application process was begun so they could know who the Jews were. So they could keep them out.

Talk about the Black and Brown kids that can't pad their chances with extra-curricular activities because they live in poor neighborhoods. Or how they can't garner higher GPAs because unlike they white counterparts in suburban school districts, AP classes are not even an option for them.

Good stuff. Good stuff. I worked in the admissions office of my college, and was amazed at the abitrary things that would get you in or keep you out. Admissions is all about the school getting the type of students they want. A balance of this and that, with an emphasis on future alums that will help pad that endowment. Fairness never comes into the decision.

I believe the white privilege form of affirmative action got John John Kennedy into Brown and into Law School. It took him a third and final try at the bar to pass (wink). Star Jones, overweight Diva who is about the same age as the deceased John John would have been, got into college and law school, presumeably under affirmative action, and passed the bar the first time (as did most of my black friends whom everyone ASSumes got in via AA) ... Hmmmmm!

"...but my ass just wishes some of the assholes bitching about not getting in would look in the mirror and have a come to Jesus with their own ass about their GPA and those sorry assed SAT scores that really got them circular filed."

I'm a librarian at a small CT university and to avoid all the preferential treatment that one group might receive over another, we have streamlined our acceptance to one requirement. The check must clear!

Gah. Far worse than "race" admissions, to me, was the sports issue. I had a GREAT GPA (finished in the top 10 of my class) and an amazingly good ACT score (2nd highest in my class). Not only was I not given a scholarship to Tulane, I wasn't even accepted.The next year, our high school produced one of the top 10 college football picks in the country. It took him 8 tries to score a 17 on his ACT (8 tries. Yes. 8 to make the lowest acceptable score). He got a full ride to Tulane, one of the most prestigious (and expensive) private schools in the country.

A girl's gotta say: Yes honey! When I was an undergrad at Prestigious Eastern U (PU), there was a lot of yack about minorities and special privileges, while Bunny and Buffy Choate-Rosemary Hall walked around like their shit didn't stink. But no one ever thinks twice about class and privilege (i.e. legacies), which is the tack I take with my recalcitrant students when teaching Affirmative Action, the classic hot button issue.

Before I have to sit through their ignorance and media-fed fear factors, I pose a series of questions to them: Why is inheriting money and the privilege that goes along with it OK, but not racial Affirmative Action? Is the rich kid more deserving? It's not like he or she earned it or anything! They're smarter? Really? How do you know? What are the material reasons for this purported smarterness? Why would we be more interested in focusing on race and not money in this controversy? Why is it OK to give certain people (with money) the benefits of education, access, and power and not others (regardless of reason: hair colour, music preference, race, gender, region, whatever)? Is this fair? Has your life been "fair"? If not, why not? Are you to blame for this lack of fairness? If yes, how? If not, who is to blame then?

This usually gives them a nice, rich pause, but it gets a better response now that I am teaching at nothing-special public U versus my job before, at stuck-up private Sadistic College. Oh, it also helps to preface everything by telling them meritocracy is bullshit. No one said Miss Girl was an expert in subtlety.

AngryBlackBitch...your commentary is on point. My sister attended Yale and I attended Smith all I can say is in school and out of school you are constantly plagued with "you took my spot." Ironically enough everyone that ever complains about the aforementioned were mediocre at best which you eloquently pointed out. I'm still waitin on my reparations...

I agree 110%. My sister and I having attended Ivy League schools have been plagued with that "you stole my spot." I have found the people that complain are usually mediocre at best. I think it's blasphemous that they should even utter those words considering they stole 400 years of our labor, I guess that was "fair."

what about wealthy suburban upper-middle-class african americans who, despite being more privileged than some of their more qualified white classmates, gain admission to ivy league schools...while their lower-middle-class white classmates (who scored 300 points higher on their SATs) are waitlisted or rejected?

You find me a verified example of a low/mid class white scoring 300 pts higher than midclass black gaining entrance to Ivy League, and I can assure you the midclass black had other outstanding attributes that put him over the white.